Ms Maeve McElwee:

I do not know that there is necessarily a legislative solution. I agree with the Deputy in that regard. She is correct. All redundancies are different and the circumstances in each individual company pertain to what has been agreed and what is in place. Many employments have collective agreements but many others do not. If we are looking specifically at the issue of collective agreements, the challenge is that they are industrial relations agreements; they are not statutory awards or a statutory right or entitlement. That means that employees who do not have a collective agreement in place would be at a disadvantage if the State were to honour ex gratiaindustrial relations agreements. Based on my experience, I would challenge whether there is necessarily a benefit in terms of that trade-off in an ex gratiapayment. An ex gratiaagreement is normally agreed by an employer with its organisation at a time when it needs to reduce staff. The agreement is put in place. Individuals in the circumstances-----